Missing Pieces
by Abvj
Summary: A series of Season four posteps with a twist. Mostly centered around Chloe and Lex. Currently On Hold.
1. Author's Notes

_Disclaimer: Smallville and all related elements, characters and © Tollin-Robbins Productions and Warner Bros. Television, All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction, no infringement is intended, no profit is being made. _

Authors Notes:

This story is a series of post eps for season four. Starting with a mid-summer short for Covenant and then continuing through-out the season with stories involving Chloe and Lex, for certain episodes. I started this last summer, and have been playing around with the post eps since October. None of the season is going to be changed, everything will remain the same, I'm just adding all the behind the scenes chlexiness everyone knows has to be going on. Conversations, flirting, … so if you're concerned about spoilers, everything is fair game in this.

Any news concering updates or the story in general will be placed here.

Read and Enjoy!


	2. Covenant

_Chapter One: Beginnings_

Chloe is vaguely aware that there is an ending in all this.

Every kiss of his lips, touch of his fingers, every single thing he does tells of an ending that she doesn't want to see. Sometimes, Chloe thinks he sees it too. It's in his eyes over breakfast as she sips her coffee and he reads his copy of the Daily Planet, it's in the way his kisses linger when he leaves, the way his fingers intertwine with hers and stay there, each day a little longer, the grip a little tighter.

He will work while she watches stupid made for TV movies, and she will read Tolstoy while he watches CNN. They share quick witted humor and pathetic attempts at sexual innuendos over eggs and coffee. He makes her pancakes and sometimes she'll make him an omelet and think of her father, and what he's doing then, in his own safe house, far, far away from her.

It all holds an air of domesticity, but to Lex it just spells mistake.

But it's a mistake he's willing to take the consequences for making. A mistake he made the first time she whispered 'stay' with a gentle brush of her lips and he obliged. A mistake he has made many, many times again already knowing the outcome. But it's worth it. It has to be, because each touch of her fingers, each sigh of content from her lips, each moment he spends with her and manages to forget about everything else, touches something in him he hasn't seen in himself in a long time.

"Any news on Clark?" Chloe will ask, snuggled up next to him, his arm around her shoulders, hers around his waist, tight and secure, as if she never wanted to let go. He is beginning to like that feeling, and is not quite sure what scares him more: the fact that he likes it or the fact that he is beginning to return it.

"Nobody knows anything. It is almost like he just disappeared."

Lex will never admit how her loyalty to Clark hurts him, so he answers her questions, and kisses her afterwards and hopes that her mind is on him instead of his once best friend. It's not, and somehow he knows that, but he kisses her anyway, the feel of his lips against hers, the touch of her blonde hair underneath his fingers, is always exhilarating and terrifying at once.

Exhilarating in the fact that it makes him want more, always wanting, needing more. Terrifying in the fact that he knows in the end one of them is going to end up hurt, and every night, sometimes as he watches her sleep, he selfishly prays to a God he hasn't acknowledged since the day his mother died, that it isn't him.

Light touches to his abdomen, pause over his navel then travel down, far down under the crisp, plain white cotton sheets she insisted on having for the simplicity of it. His eyes travel over her face, her vibrant green eyes, sparkling with mischief and want, her cheekbones, more prominent now than ever and he makes a mental note to remind her to eat more, take better care of herself. His gaze stays on her lips, supple and well kissed.

"What time are you expected back?" Chloe asks, voice like gravel, echoing throughout the plain room. She knows there are time restrictions, that unlike her he has a life outside of this house, a business to run. And while she has every right to be selfish, she's not. Lex knows Chloe is a better person than he can ever hope to be.

And he wonders how she can be so young, yet so old at the same time.

Most times Chloe doesn't wait for an answer to her question, just kisses him. Full, sometimes hard, sometimes soft, on the mouth. Lex is an excellent kisser, with excellent hands and an excellent mouth, and sometimes her mind wanders when she's alone, and she misses her father, and she wonders if he's using his talents on other women. Tall, beautiful women, with a different shade of hair and darker skin.

But then her name is torn from his lips against her breast, and she knows he's not.

He sinks inside her, his lips on her shoulder, her hands on his back, his eyes on hers, the gaze never wavering. "I missed you today," he whispers against her pale skin as he moves inside her and that, right there, with the two of them connected so intimately, there is a side of Lex she's never seen before. A side of Lex she never wants to loose.

A broken, unsophisticated, needy side of a man who is never broken, always sophisticated and has never wanted for anything. Selfishly she hopes no other woman has ever seen this side of him. Selfishly she thinks she may just want to be the only woman to ever see this side of him.

"I missed you too," Chloe whispers back, her lips attacking his, hips meeting his frantically. And it's the truth, with each passing day she misses him a little more, thinks about him a little more, comes to depend on his presence a little bit more.

His pace is often frantic and needy, sometimes slow and lingering. Chloe isn't sure which one she likes better. She has come to expect the fact that no matter what he does, with him it will always be good, always be fantastic, because it is the two of them, and they just seem to fit in all the right ways.

He knows every place to touch her. Every way to kiss her. Knows how to kiss her exactly the way she wants, when she wants it. Chloe knows every nerve ending, every spot, every sound. Knows just where to apply pressure and when to lightly graze her fingers. They know each other so well, that it's routine. A glorious, always changing, never dull routine that's addicting and consuming at the same time.

Long after touches has slowed and their desires are sedated for the time being, Chloe will burrow into the nook between Lex's shoulder and neck, and one of his arms with be snug around her, one hand idly tracing patterns on her belly. The two of them will lay there together and bask in the glow of magnificent, toe-curling, muscle numbing sex. Sometimes they'll talk, and sometimes they won't. But most of the time they will just be. Be together, be them, be two people they can only ever be with each other.

It is in that time, that rare special time they spend together, Chloe and Lex both know this isn't just about sex, about want or desire. This is about need. About needing each other in ways only the other can give. Ways that weren't just physical, but emotional as well.

And it is then that both of them hope when the time comes, the need will have dwindled a little bit, become a little more livable, so they could say goodbye.

**xXx**

"He's a good guy Daddy," Chloe tells her father on one of the rare occasions Lex takes pity on her and against the wishes of the numerous bodyguards that surround them day in and day out, takes her to see him.

Not seeing your father for weeks on end makes the hugs tighter, the smiles sadder, and as she looks at him, really looks at him, she knows time does things to people that can never be reversed. Chloe watches his face as he sits inside the screened in porch of a house in the middle of nowhere, with men dressed finely in black suits and dark sunglasses, and Chloe thinks he looks older than she remembers. Worry lines are noticeable on his forehead and have aged him far too much in such a small amount of space.

"I just," a long deep sigh and Gabe's eyes trail to Lex, far away from them and out of ear shot, shouting on his cell phone. "I just think after everything that's happened his intentions need to be re-thought out on our parts."

Chloe will never tell her father what goes on between her and Lex. Will never let him know that their relationship crosses the borders of friendship and trails into the category of lovers. A part of her knows she doesn't have to, knows her father is smart enough to figure it out. Knows he knows her just a little too well.

"I know him Dad," she reassures her father, laying her hand on top of his, "he won't hurt us."

"Look around, honey," Gabe says with a hint of irritation in his voice, "he already has."

Chloe knows he's right. Knows that before all of this is said and done with, before they finally return to Smallville and the rest of their lives that are waiting in shambles for them, she knows, somewhere deep inside her, that she is going to be even more hurt than she was when she got there.

"Never intentionally," Chloe reminds her father gently, eyes trailing over to Lex behind her sunglasses.

Her words are the truth, but really, there are still so many ways you can hurt someone and not do it intentionally.

**xXx**

Lex watches Pretty Woman in vain. Doesn't exactly care for the movie, but Chloe likes it, says it's romantic in an offhanded way as her lips are against his. So he wraps his arm around her and reads his paper in the dimly lit living room while she watches Richard Gere and Julia Roberts fall in love.

They watch it a total of three, excruciating times, and each time when it comes to the part at the end where Edward lets Vivian leave, Chloe snuggles a little closer, wraps her arms around Lex a little tighter. It's not the movie she particularly likes, and before then, before that summer, she really hadn't. Found it cheesy, and stupid, and completely unrealistic.

But sometimes Chloe just needed to be reminded that there was a happily ever after.

So, she watches Vivian leave Edward and snuggles closer to Lex. Watches a woman leave a man she so obviously loves. Watches Edward let Vivian, a woman he so obviously loves, leave. Vivian who got punched in the face for him, who dressed in pretty clothes and pretended to be something she wasn't for him, a woman who was changing for him. And Edward just lets her leave.

The last time they watch it she sniffles, takes Lex's free hand and laces his fingers with hers. She never would have taken him for a guy who likes to cuddle, but he does, and reaches out for her just as many times as she does for him.

"What's wrong?"

Chloe turns to him, wide eyed at his concern. "He lets her leave," she says simply, as if it should explain everything.

Lex looks confused for a moment, unlaces their fingers and traces her cheek tenderly for a second, "They get together in the end, though. Right?"

"That's not the point," the roll of her eyes isn't seen because she turns her head away from his caress just in time. "The point is he lets her go and doesn't even try to stop her. He is _suppose _to love her, and he just lets her go."

"We'll you don't know what you've got until it's gone," Lex jokes in a manner so completely unlike him, so not Luthor-like, that it catches her off guard.

It is odd because Lex is known to quote Elliot and Churchill, Shakespeare on the very rare occasion. It catches her off guard because this is Joni Mitchell, and it's so incredibly clichéd which is something Lex is far from. She laughs, but it's forced, and he can tell just as much as she can feel it.

And as she sits there and watches the movie, she wonders if he'd ever let her go that easy. Is afraid of what her answer might be.

**xXx**

There is an ending in this and they both know it.

He stands there and looks at her with sad eyes, and she knows that this is it. That it's over. He's off on some trip for reasons he refuses to tell her, and while he stands there at the door of this over priced lap of luxury house, where he's provided her with everything she could ever need, he says that it's just a break.

Chloe knows better. Lex does too, but he thinks he's doing this for her. If nothing else, Lex is noble, and for some reason she can't help but adore that trait and find it infuriating at the same time.

The next time they will see each other they will be back in Smallville, back to life as they knew it, before this mess with Lionel, before the mess they'd tangled themselves in with each other. There was no room for this, whatever it was, in their lives once they returned. It was inevitable, it was a truth they had been trying to outrun since it started. Since that first, innocent brush of lips.

It's funny how three months can feel like an eternity. How the two can see the unwritten agreement underneath all of this. This summer, this relationship is just for them, a secret that will linger in the back of their minds as they remember touches and kisses and caresses that will never truly fade.

Lex is standing at the door, and she's sitting on the steps and it feels a little too melodramatic, even for her, even this summer, so she smiles. Smiles that beautiful smile that grows when she watches one grace his own lips.

So unique, and so beautiful, yet so rare. And she thinks she may miss that the most.

"We can't do this anymore," her voice sounds like her own, sounds strong and unwavering and masks the feelings she really feels.

He looks just as sad as she feels, but the reason goes unnoted. "I know," he crosses they way to her, and before she can think his lips are on hers, soft at first, then harder, more pressure. His hands are in her hair but they might as well be holding her heart because that's where it lies. Fragile and slightly broken in his hands. "We'll pick this up again later."

It's half a statement, half a question, spoken in a raspy tone, and he's never looked so unsure about anything in the entire time she's known him.

A sigh torn from her lips, choking and surprisingly the tears she expects to fall don't. Chloe is stronger now, learned lessons that no seventeen year old should have to, and she has the battle scars to show it. Except, most of them are on her heart, and hurt more than she ever thought they would.

"Promise?" A watery smile, a needy voice, but she thinks she is warranted that.

He kisses her again gently and promises, because he doesn't think he'll ever be able to truly let her go.

TBC


	3. Crusade and Gone

_Chapter Two: Breathing the Fallout in_

She's been gone for almost three months, back for a week, and it feels like nothing has changed.

Chloe supposes that Smallville, in all it's glory, is just one of those places that never really changes. People grow up here, go to high school here, picnic at Crater Lake and end up falling in love for the first time within the very halls she roams. Some are lucky to get away and escape to college in the big city, but more often than not the people return, start a family, raise their children, and then the whole vicious circle repeats itself.

Despite the freak of the weeks, the crazy meteor inflicted psychos that always seem to have some reason or another to try and kill Lana, everything runs by a schedule in Smallville. Schedules that people very rarely break because they like the familiarity Smallville brings them. Her father jokes that one year in Smallville is like seven anywhere else, and she'll laugh and roll her eyes, but underneath it all she can't help but think it's true.

She has been gone for almost three months, back for a week, and it's like no one even noticed.

The fact that people are more interested in Lana Lang's summer in Paris then the reality that Lionel Luthor was sentenced to prison a mere few days before and was put there single handedly by his son and a small town high school reporter, not just angers her, it frightens her as well. Although, it's been almost five years, and the Lana Lang worship that almost everybody in this town has, somewhere along the line managed to become customary to her too.

She is almost to the point where it doesn't bother her, but it still surprises her that sometimes no one, not even the ever perceptible Martha Kent, can see that outside the unbreakable walls that seem to surround Smallville there is a whole other world. A world that didn't involve pink princess worship, football, and bigotry towards the Devil's very own son who roamed the same streets they did in hope that some day, some time in the near future, he could be known as something else.

Maybe the summer has altered her perception on things. Maybe her trust in Lex, her faith in him and the goodness she knows is inside him, is misguided. Chloe supposes that it takes three months alone and away from everything you know to put things into perspective. It just came to her as a genuine surprise when things didn't come into crystal clear view like she thought they would.

Lana isn't the best friend Chloe had thought she might be, Clark will never be fit to sit upon that pedestal Chloe had placed him for all those years, and perhaps, just maybe, he was the wrong person to place there in the first place.

It scares her that everything she's known for the past five years, all the beliefs she's put stock into, weren't really worth it to begin with. But she's been scared enough for the past three months to last her a lifetime so she pushes it aside, and goes with the flow the best she can.

"Take things slowly," her father had told her as she tried desperately to cover up the gash on the side of her head, the bruises that linger on her face. "No one is expecting you jump back into things like the past few months haven't happened."

Her father kissed her on the forehead tenderly, hugged her close and lingered there. Her heart ached a little because she realized just how much she had missed her father. How much she missed the one person she could ever really count on, the one person she knew would always be there. It had always been a source of comfort for her, the constant presence of her father. Now all she could do was realize that he was no longer the only person in her life that filled that description.

Chloe had ended up crying amongst boxes in her room of a house her and her father couldn't afford. Smothered her cries into a sweater to keep her father from hearing, wrapped her arms around her knees and just cried. Closed her eyes and pictured strong arms around her, comforting her, and ended up crying some more. Cried because of the pain she's causing her father, for the pain she's causing herself, cried because she was just too tired of not crying. Cried because she missed a man she wasn't suppose to miss.

But Chloe wasn't weak, and while she had earned the right to participate in a little pity fest, she didn't partake for long. Just rubbed the tears from her eyes, took a deep breath and forgot about trying to cover the bruises on her face. She just continued to unpack the life she had left behind.

A life she couldn't help but bitterly think was better suited that way.

**xXx**

After a summer of living inside and the backyard of a strange house being the farthest she could go, Chloe often finds herself taking long walks around her neighborhood. Getting in her car and letting to top down and just breathing the summer air in has become a ritual for her, one she partakes in when she just needs a break, when she's left in her room and her mind wanders towards unwanted thoughts that have her reaching for her keys and ready to head towards the Luthor Estate without a second thought.

The halls of Smallville High are littered with athletes who are busy training for fall sports so she slips into The Torch unnoticed. For Chloe it had always been a safe haven, a home away from home, and in the midst of a week where she couldn't escape her father's prying eyes or Lois's annoying interrogations, the sigh that escaped her lips as she leaned against the door and surveyed the room was definitely one of relief.

She used to fear silence, hated the long, drug out uncomfortable silences that often filled conversations. Now, after a summer of comfortable silences with the only person she had ever felt so at ease with, she craved it. As she closes her eyes and breathes in the sweet smell of paper and pencils, a smile spreads to her lips. The first, real genuine smile that had touched her lips in weeks it seems.

Fingers trace over her desk top, the top of the computer monitor, and she catches sight of her 'Wall of Weird' and for the first time since being back in Smallville the familiar feeling of home starts to flood back through her. She breathes it in, makes a memory to store in her mind so she'll never forget this.

"When Lois told me this is where you ran off too I didn't believe her," she doesn't jump at the intruding, familiar voice, just stops moving all together, "I guess I should have known it wouldn't take you long to find your way back."

She turns and smiles softly towards Clark, "Like a moth to the old proverbial flame."

"How are you?"

He has that adorable, concerned look on his face, and she feels the slightest essence of butterflies in her stomach, but it doesn't last for long. "Tired," she says, the word and smile that matches the customary answer these days. "But other than that, fine."

"I missed you Chloe."

She pressed her lips into a thin line, nodding slightly, and she tries to remember a time when those words would have meant the world to her but comes up with nothing. It seems like an eternity ago.

"I missed you too," she smiles, but it's just as fake as her words and she wonders if that despite her spur of the moment inquisitions about Clark, the fact that she barely gave him a second thought this summer, makes her a bad person. Decides in the end she doesn't really care because a part of her knows Clark, wherever he had ran off to this time, probably didn't think about her that much either.

And while that would have bothered her, it felt liberating in that moment that it didn't.

"Well now that everything's over," he smiled that charming smile, "we can just put this all behind us, forget about it. All of it."

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what he's hinting at because while Clark Kent was good at some things he had never been the king of subtlety. And besides, she knows how thin the line between friendship and enemies was being treaded these days between Clark and Lex, and Clark had always been one to hold a grudge. It bothers her that she knows him so well and yet he knows her so little.

"Lex saved my life, Clark," Chloe says, green eyes narrowing in on him, "he promised to protect me and he did. Don't be angry with him on my account."

"I'm glad he keeps the promises he makes to you then."

He sound arrogant and self righteous and a little bit of a whiny child in that moment and she hates it.

"I would be dead right now if it weren't for Lex."

"You would be dead right now if it weren't for Lois and I."

"And Lex," Chloe pressed testily.

It's Clark's turn to narrow his eyes slightly, and he looks even angrier then he had before. "Lex is the reason you have those bruises on you face, he's the reason you almost died Chloe."

She laughs bitterly, "I am the reason I got into this mess Clark. Believe it or not I am capable of forming decisions on my own, no matter how misguided they may be."

"Since when did you become Lex Luthor's biggest fan?"

The minute I stopped being yours, she thinks, but does not say. Her presidents badge to the Clark Kent fan club has been put away for such a long time now, she can't remember why she ever felt that way about him to begin with. The smile is a given, the looks are too, but anything else is just a mystery.

"Did you come here to yell at me or did you come here for a reason because honestly, I'm not in the mood for one of your lectures."

"I'm just trying to protect you Chloe."

"I don't need a protector Clark, I need a friend," her words come out harsher than she intended and she unconsciously rubs at her temples at the hurt look that crossed his handsome boyish features. Closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. Began again, "I don't ask you for very much, so if you don't think you can do this one, simple thing, I really just want you to leave."

Clark looks away, avoiding eye contact at all costs. "I'm sorry-"

"Don't be sorry, just be a better friend."

He looks at her then, and Chloe realizes that maybe things in Smallville did change after all, because it was very clear in that moment that Chloe Sullivan was no longer in love with her best friend.

**xXx**

She is pretty sure there was something faulty in her thinking somewhere along the line, that this will later reveal itself as a mistake. But, she looks at him, watches as he rolls up his thousand dollar sleeves and pours batter into a skillet, she decides that she doesn't really care. Decides that a week of constant questions from Lois, and constant worrying, no matter how well intentioned, from her father put her on edge and suddenly she was sitting in her unpacked living room eating Chinese takeout and she had a craving for pancakes.

Which, upon further questioning, she will tell anyone that is where she went. The fact that they were Lex Luthor's pancakes and he was making them for her, in his own kitchen at almost midnight, well, that would go unsaid. Be another little secret she let herself indulge in.

This had a recipe for disaster, but as long as she was here with him, she decided it didn't really matter anymore.

"Blueberries?"

A chuckle escapes her glossed lips as she sips her coffee, and she wonders if anyone else has ever seen him like this. Wonders what Lionel Luthor would say if he saw his son like this. "No," she wrinkles what he had once commented is her perfect nose, "Plain."

His very own Sullivan omelet is sitting off to the side untouched, catered just the way he likes it, and Two perfectly round, perfectly browned pancakes are set in front of her and she watches with a gentle smile as he slides onto the stool across from her in the oversized kitchen. It's been too long, and that is obvious through the nervous smiles they send each other. Polite pleasantries aside, neither of them really know where to begin, so they have settled into the secret gazes and longing stares portion of the evening.

"What time do you have to be home?"

Chloe waves her pancake filled fork at him with a careless shrug, "My father is so worried that I'll break he probably won't even question it."

The words are laced with an amount of bitterness she knows she has no right to feel, but she does, and can't help it. For the past week she's been pretending, pretending with Clark, with Lois, with Lana and her father. Offering smiles that are fake and words that mean nothing. Telling everyone she's okay, when really she feels anything but, and she's tried of it. Tired of pretending that the person she became over the summer doesn't exist and the person she was, still does.

Being here, with Lex, the only person that seems to know her, really know her, it makes her feel at ease. Safe and secure, like the missing part of herself she's been searching for, went to look for at The Torch, has finally been found. A sense of home finally does consume her, floods her senses and overwhelms her. Chloe figures she should have known she would only feel it when she was with him.

"How are you?"

A question she's been asked a million times before, this day alone, and yet, from his lips, it's different. Genuine, and for the first time words slip past her lips that are the truth.

"Sad," the smile she offers prove her point. "Mostly I just feel sad." A sigh from her lips and it feels like this burden has been lifted off her shoulders. "How are you?" she reaches forward and grazes his hand gently, staring as he turns his palm over and intertwines his fingers with her. Only for the briefest moment though, because before she can feel the tingle run up her spine, it's gone.

"I think I feel a little sad too."

Why, she's not sure. About his father maybe, about them a part of her hopes, but she doesn't press. They're back in Smallville now, and walls are being rebuilt around him, and she knows no matter how hard she tries there is nothing she can do to stop it.

Chloe looks up just in time to catch him watching, catch his eyes straying to a part of her face she was waiting for him to comment on. He doesn't, and she just sits there and finishes her pancakes and watches guilt fill his features, and it doesn't take a lot for her to figure out he's blaming himself.

"Did you tell this guy to kidnap me? Did you tell him to punch me?"

Lex looks surprised, as if he's wondering if she can read his mind, but recovers quickly. The two had always known each other on a deeper level. A level where spared glances and innocent touches told them everything they needed to know about each other.

"I know what you are trying to say-"

"Because really, Lex, even for you that is a bit extreme."

A smile reaches his lips. He misses her and bites his tongue to keep from saying it. Misses her so much it physically hurts him, makes him ache in a way he's unfamiliar with. Makes him realize that all they can be right now is friends, and that is something he's yet been able to come to terms with. He goes day by day, each day getting a little easier, but still so hard.

He thinks about her constantly, everything he does, every move he makes, every word that comes out of his mouth makes him think of her. He's obsessed, and slightly treading the border of scary, and he wonders if she feels the same way. Wonders if this break, as he so eloquently put it, is hurting her as much as it does him.

It is necessary though, too many prying eyes, too much hatred in his father, and if the bruises on her face are any preview of the future, he knows this is what has to be. He cares about her too much, takes responsibility of her too often to say screw it and put her in the line of fire. But she knows him too well, and knows his reasons behind his decision without him ever voicing them, to question it.

Chloe trusts him, and while it may be a mistake on her part, he revels in it. It is a rare and beautiful act, someone trusting him so wholeheartedly and he aches to put her in that special category where only his mother and Pamela have been before. Knows that if he thinks about it, really thinks about it, she already is. Lex takes the trust she has in him and multiplies it ten fold and puts it in her as well.

"This is harder than I thought it would be," a sigh, sad and resigned, and he's just as tired feeling those emotions as she is.

"It's for the best."

"Sometimes what we think if for the best, really isn't."

They are so close, yet still so far away. Sitting in his kitchen, eating breakfast food in the middle of the night, and the whole situation feels surreal. Like it's a dream that he's conjured up in the midst of hurt, and guilt, and sorrow, and pain. Feelings that he sees reflected in her eyes, that he wants to soothe because as long as she feels them, he feels them too.

"I feel like I'm losing you."

For the life of him he can't figure out who said it because it's exactly what he's thinking, but it doesn't sound like his voice. Two parts of a whole the two of them, two parts that can only, if ever, really exist when in the presence of the other.

"What is lost can always be found again." It's melodramatic and sad, and so unlike him, but he says it anyway. Being with Chloe, having her near, makes him do things he never would have done before, say things that are so unlike him it would make any other person question it besides him.

There is a glimmer of hope in his words, a graceful smile on his lips, and she smiles back. Smiles that beautiful Sullivan smile that make his knees go weak and threaten to tip him over even though he's sitting.

They are losing each other. As each day passes by a little bit more is lost and their summer feels a little farther away, a bit more out of reach. It leaves both of them feeling a little less whole than they were before. But as she reaches for his hand, a move that he never would have done himself but desperately needed for her to do, he had all the faith in the world that they would find each other again.

TBC


	4. Facade

_Chapter Three: The Possibilities of Impossibilities_

"You and Clark are really getting along, aren't you?"

His eyes barely tear themselves away from the computer screen in front of him, but he watches her from the corner of his eye. "I don't think anyone has ever loved me more at the moment," he replies dryly.

Abby Fine's whereabouts are still unknown, but Chloe has a pretty good idea that she's made a quick trip to Belle Reeve to make sure her mother didn't leave any lasting damage that wasn't skin deep and couldn't be repaired. Brett and Lana have been back at school for a good week now, and Lois is on a journalism kick after getting fan mail that says she gave some girl 'a life changing experience'.

It is nothing out of the ordinary, especially by Smallville's standards, but it's not lost on Lex that Lois's sudden interest in both journalism and Clark Kent bothers Chloe more than she lets show. Her irritation with the situation bothers him a great deal as well, more than he cares to admit, but he doesn't let that show either.

For a brief moment he wonders if she realizes that most of what they try to hide from each other really doesn't ever remain hidden and probably never will.

A jacket slides off her shoulders and is strewn across the back of a overly plush, expensive leather chair. Lex watches her with a small, almost nonexistent smile, the ease in which she does so showing an amount of comfortableness, an amount of disregard for the personal space of his private office no one had ever dared to show before. He'd be lying if he said he didn't like it. He'd be a fool if he let himself believe the way she fit so easily into his perfectly polished walls didn't turn him on, intrigue him in the slightest.

"You feel like yelling?"

Chloe looks young today, fresh, with sun kissed shoulders and face. She's smiling that beautiful smile and he strongly resists the urge to return it. Actually has to will himself not to.

"Sometimes."

"Do you want to yell at me?"

"No," Lex isn't sure where she's going with this, but the uncertainty doesn't show. Knowing Chloe means living with unexpected turns and twist, and Lex finds he's never loved expecting the unexpected more.

"Do you want to talk?"

"No."

There is no maliciousness in his tone, no edge, just a formal answer in the negative. She isn't suppose to be there, they both know that much. Space, that is what the had decided on, that's where this agreement stemmed. Avoiding contact with one another meant less questions, less time spent having to figure out ways to hide this, whatever it was, from nosy onlookers. Chloe is reluctant to put a specific name to what is going on between them and Lex figures he really doesn't care.

As long as he has her, he thinks, it doesn't matter what this is.

"You've been sulking," a hint of teasing, a hint of seriousness and there is wonder at how she can know him so well after such a short amount of time.

"I have not."

It's a blatant lie, and he can't bring himself to meet her eyes as he says it so they stay on the computer screen in front of him. Lying had always come easy to him, not an honorable trait by any means, but still, he couldn't look her in the eye when he told her simplest lie.

"When was the last time you left your office?" Chloe follows the question with a raised eyebrow, and when he fails to answer she continues, "just as I suspected, sulking."

"I do not sulk," there is a bit of edge in his tone now, but the smile is hidden somewhere underneath and she can see it as clear as day. "I've had work to do."

The expected roll of the eyes is accompanied by a click of her tongue. "Of course you have."

"I have."

"I just said I believed you."

"Sounded more like you were mocking me."

Chloe shrugs noncommittally, examining her fingernails in an almost scrutinizing way. He watches, amazed by every move she makes, enthralled simply by her because she was so close, in arms reach. Lex is preparing to stand, to make his way over to her, before he thinks twice. But sits himself back down as soon as he reanalyzes the situation. His mind always wins over the matters of his heart. Even when it involves Chloe, and even though these days the battle is harder to win than it used to be.

Lex never makes moves that aren't calculated and well-thought out. He never gives answers to questions he didn't see coming, and he didn't let information slip unless he had thought it out, and then re-thought it out numerous times again. With Chloe that well worn, perfectly working process flies right out the window, sometimes accompanied with his inhibitions.

Sometimes he likes it, the feeling he has with her, the foreign feeling of trust and--dare he say-- completion that flows through him when he's with her. Like nothing else matters but the two of them, in that moment. Sometimes he likes it, yes, but most times he curses it, curses her for causing his stiff, stoic exterior, that he has worked so hard to develop to disintegrate just by her mere presence.

"Are you ever going to tell me why you and Clark are fighting?"

Lex knows it took a lot for her to just get the question past her lips, and somewhere in his muddled, lust induced mind, he knows that was the reason she was here. Well, not the whole reason, but a big part of the reason. Lex has grown accustomed to fact that Chloe, for reasons still unknown to him, likes just simply being with him. He has grown accustomed to it mostly because he feels the same way about her. He may never admit it out loud, only think it, but the feeling is still there, and he welcomes it freely.

"I'm not sure you really want to know."

Lies are always easier than the truth and it surprises him that this has a little bit of truth in it too. Truth was he wasn't sure he wanted her to know, wanted to see her face when he told her. There's only one way he could come out of this and it was with his true colors shining. The ones he tries to hide when he's with her because he doesn't want to scare her away. Because he doesn't think she can handle seeing them. She's strong, sure, but no one has ever been that strong. Not for him.

"That is a lie and you know it."

Chloe isn't angry, just seems resigned. As if she expected this, like she knew that would be his answer, but came here anyway. Is asking anyway. Again, there is the wonder at being known so well that creeps into his mind unknowingly.

"Are you ever going to tell me?"

"Eventually, yes."

It occurs to him that those may have been the most truthful words he's uttered though-out their entire conversation.

She's not supposed to be there but neither on of them is jumping to point that out.

**xXx**

It starts with a pristine white business card, with black penmanship she recognized easily sitting on her desk at _The Torch_ a few days before. The note simply said: _Tuesday, 4:30._ It was obvious who it was from, and Lois didn't bat an eye when as she watches her stuff the card into her back pocket. The fact that the card switched from the left to right pocket of her jeans during the time she'd been out the day after, did go unnoted however, because as long as Lois didn't ask, there was no reason to bring it up.

The penmanship she recognizes simply because she's seen it too many times before. The notes on files she gave him on Adam Knight that he'd passed back to her, scribbles on pieces of paper he'd left her that explained abrupt departures as she slept.

Any person in their right mind probably would have questioned it. But this was Chloe, and she trusts Lex, and and sure enough Tuesday afternoon she finds herself sneaking out of Lois's sight long enough to get away unscathed and interrogation free.

Silly romantic notions fills her mind, and in spite of the fact that every single one of them were ridiculous and a downright impossibility, she lets herself believe on the ride over to the mansion that this stupid charade they're partaking in would disappear for a few hours. That the façade would fade away, and she could feel a mere resemblance of the way she had the summer prior.

Chloe constantly wonders how long their agreement to keep each other at arms length will actually last because the urge to jump him the moment she sees him has become more powerful by each passing moment, and the subtle touches she sends his way aren't as subtle as she'd like them to be and last longer than they should.

Her car is parked out of view and she enters the service entrance out of habit. Anyone who cared enough to look would know she was there, but it made the both of them feel better if their tracks were covered. The cover of interviews of _The Torch _only went so far, and sooner or later someone was going to catch on that for all the time she spends in Lex's presence, there are no interviews to show for it.

An elderly lady Chloe has never seen before leads her past the library, past Lex's office, and towards a part of the house she couldn't remember being before.

"Where is Mr. Luthor?"

Formalities are always the best in situations like these, because even though the greatest attempts were put forth on her part, she was becoming just as paranoid as Lex. It was a safe bet that his entire staff knew what went on between them, but Lex had always told her to let them know as little as possible. Everyone had a price, he had told her, and it was scary to find out what the going rate was these days for digging up dirt on a Luthor no matter who the information hurt.

"Waiting for you," the graying brunette says softly, stopping all together and nodding her head to a closed door before walking away.

She's a reporter first and foremost and curiosity is what makes her push the door open, sheer adrenaline and anticipation is what makes her walk inside. It's relatively dark, but the light from the hallway streams in behind her as she makes her way down the few stairs, but as soon as her eyes adjust she stops. Dead in her tracks. Of all the things she had expected, of all the silly romantic notions that had crossed her mind on the drive over, had filtered into her thoughts for the past days, this was not one of them.

"I didn't know whether or not you would come."

The voice comes from behind her, and for the life of her she can't make herself turn around, can't tear eyes away from her surroundings. Through the shock she recognizes it as Lex's voice, slightly wavering and uncertain. Scared almost, and as her heart beats a million miles a minute she realizes that it wasn't possible because Lex Luthor was fearless.

Finally she manages to turn wide-eyes towards him, and the look on his face tells her that her earlier assumptions were faulty. He looks just as fearful as she does.

"What is this?" There words said in one breath, and Chloe doesn't know what to be more amazed about- her surroundings, Clark's beautiful, boyishly handsome face staring back at her or the fact that Lex's face was so open, so full of emotion. A rare act he never took part in.

A small sad smirk as he steps into the room, he cocks his head to the side and flips another switch, the room finally fully illuminated.

Lex regards her carefully before answering, "The splitting of a friendship."

**xXx**

He's testing her.

Lex watches Chloe's eyes scan the room and flutter back to his occasionally. He doesn't like what he sees there mostly because he can't put a name to it. Doesn't recognize the look in her eyes as her fingers trace over the hood of the beaten Porsche.

He's testing Chloe, trying to see what would happen when she found out a fraction of who he really was, trying to see what she'd do, how far she would run in the opposite direction. There is reason in thinking that she couldn't handle this particular truth. That Chloe wouldn't want to have uncovered this secret once she found it.

The truth was the hardest thing to handle, cuts you deeper than anything else because there isn't any part of it that could leave you with another possible answer. The truth was fact, you couldn't change it. This was it, crystal clear right in front of her, and he found himself holding his breath as he awaited her reaction.

A part of him foolishly hopes that this will end well. It had with Helen after all, but shortly after the thought enters his mind he realizes that Helen and Chloe were two different people. Helen had accepted this part of him, this darker side that everyone knew about but had no proof of, but the fact that it could have been for purely ulterior motives didn't go unnoted by him.

Chloe's eyes stray to the computer screen where the reenactment of the accident on the bridge replayed over and over, and then turned back to the car. Back and forth, back and forth, a peculiarlook on her face, before her eyes finally land on him.

"Clark said you stopped investigating him," she presses her lips into a thin line, steps closer to the jar holding the parasite from the caves.

Lex steps closer to her, watches her carefully, reaches out a hand to touch her, but stops himself. "I lied," a simple truth that holds more meaning than ever and he watches her swallow harshly at the sound of it.

"I-" she laughs mirthlessly, tearing her eyes away and finally settles on his, "I don't know what to say."

"You wanted the truth, Chloe. This is it. This is who I am."

Nobody had ever stood by him through thick and thin, never cared enough to fight for him. Under any other circumstances he wouldn't have cared, the disappointment he'd suffered during his youth because of his father had made him develop a rougher covering than others. Disappointment was a feeling he hardly ever felt because he never held enough faith in people to let himself get to the point where disappointment was an option.

The kind he'd felt with Clark had been mild, he'd been prepared for it. But now it was different. Everything was different with Chloe. In the few short months he has really known her, his faith in her had increased immensely and the heaviness in his heart could only be attached to the disappointment and hurt he was bound to feel at the end of this.

The situation warrants the move and he slides a hand over his bald head, rocks back and forth on his heels awaiting her reaction. Waiting for her to say something, anything.

"Why are you showing me this?"

"I wanted to be honest with you," his voice sounds honest, and tender almost, but there is a pang in his heart when she moves away when he reaches to touch her arm. "I didn't want our relationship to be based on lies."

She nods sharply, turns on her heel to click off the screen with Clark's face on it. "Okay," her sigh echoes throughout the room as she faces him. His eyes never leave her face, never stop watching her, and when he expects her to look away, she doesn't. "So we're being truthful? Right now? No lies, just you, me, the truth and nothing else?"

The raised eyebrow that marks the Sullivan challenge confuses him, "Yes."

He watches as she turns on her heel and makes her way straight for the meteor rock. "Then you will understand when I ask you my next question?" It sounds more of a statement than a question, but as her eyes stray towards the meteor rock, he answers anyway.

"Of course."

She smiles that half smile that reminds him eerily of his own, "What exactly did you find out about Clark Kent?"

**xXx**

Lex fantasizes about Chloe.

He thinks, that possibly she is the only woman he has kept fantasizing about even after he's slept with her. He thinks, that possibly, his fantasizes are better than the reality of the two of them, that reality will almost, if not always, run a close second. For in his fantasies the touches of skin under his fingertips, the constant brush of her lips seems too real to question, and when Chloe kisses him and it is filled with a promise of forever. A promise that is unwavering and able to be kept.

In reality, that promise is a lie.

Now the space between them is literally not much, but figuratively the two of them couldn't be farther a part. His fantasies take over where reality ends these days because it is on a very rare occasion that the two of them break the terms of their agreement and allow themselves to indulge in the sweet surrender of a simple kiss.

Too often than not Chloe's kisses are bittersweet. Are filled with adoration and dare he say love, and in that moment, the very moment her lips brush against his, it's everything to him, and than in the next it's nothing. Nothing but hidden kisses, and gentle caresses, declarations he aches to say but knows he never will. All to soon the moments they share are over, and he's forced to act as though it's nothing to him. He's forced to watch from a far as she acts as though he's nothing to her.

On the rare occasions that his sleep is filled with dreams, they are always filled with her.

She stops by, late at night. She is not expected home at any time because Gabe knows about them, is happy for them. Clark knows too, and in this world, in this perfect world he dreams, Clark is happy for them too. He even envies Lex because he finally has what Clark has always wanted: someone to love him for him, unconditionally, no strings attached.

Chloe will curl into his lap, and Lex will let her because in this world he is comfortable letting his guard down. She will lean her head against his shoulder and he will watch as her eyes fall closed contently. His own eyes will close as her lips touch his cheek lovingly. Lex won't question it, and it felt like the most natural thing to do. He will watch in amazement as his fingers fit perfectly between hers and wonder how he got to be so lucky.

Lex will end up on his knees between her legs, bringing her closer and closer to the edge as her fingers grip his shoulders. She urges him on with her harsh gasps and pants, her shouted declarations. His need to watch her is still there, even in his dreams, and he does, eyes constantly on her face, meeting hers right when she comes. She will throw her head back and grin, murmur his name huskily and he will every second of it.

Afterwards, she will pull him up for a lazy kiss. Lips sliding together with ease, tongues finding each other easily, and the whole thing will taste of a familiarity he never wants to rid himself of.

"I love you," Chloe will whisper against his lips, smiling that beautiful smile she smiles just for him.

In this perfect world he dreams, he will say it back, over and over again, and means it every time.

It had never occurred to him before, that brief blinding possibility, that the perfect word he dreamed would be obtainable in real life. He had shrugged it off, pushed it away so he could live with it just like every other thing he'd pushed into the realm of impossibilities. Right next to the possibility of his father ever loving him like only a father could love his son.

But he realizes that maybe it isn't so impossible, that the two of them are more alike than he had thought. And he thinks maybe, just maybe, he loves their similarities just as much as he's going to love the moment that the promises her kisses held in his fantasies would hold true to the ones in reality.

TBC


End file.
